


The Places We Could Meet

by elizajane



Series: The Cafe [7]
Category: Foyle's War
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Backstory, F/F, F/M, M/M, Non-Chronological, Post-Break Up, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-05 18:04:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6715579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizajane/pseuds/elizajane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hullo!” a young man about her own age appears from the kitchen, wiping his hands with a towel, “I was just putting the scones in the oven. New recipe; took a bit longer than I’d anticipated, I’m afraid. You must be Samantha. Dad told me you’d be starting this morning.”</p><p>“Sam,” she corrects, automatically extending a hand in response to his proffered palm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Places We Could Meet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Crowgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowgirl/gifts).



> For Crowgirl, because she let's me play in her 'verses, and because she was having a hard weekend.
> 
> Thanks to [Kivrin](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kivrin) for the beta! All remaining missteps are my own.
> 
> This is an extremely tardy addition to the TwelveInTwelve2016 [March prompt](http://twelve-in-twelve-2016.tumblr.com/post/140240830440/march-prompt-the-coffee-shop-au).
> 
> This work stands on its own, and may be considered an "outtake" in relation to The Cafe series, but future installments may occur.

Christopher Foyle offers her the job with an extended hand at the end of her interview and Sam accepts with a touch of giddy relief. She steps back out onto the windswept pavement feeling accomplished for the day -- and it’s only half nine!

She’s been in Hastings for ten days and already has a job that promises to help fill the gap between her University funding and day-to-day living expenses. The balance in her bank account, even after she and Moira had split the deposit on their flat in Brighton, is alarmingly low. And she isn’t ready to admit defeat and go to either parent for assistance just yet.

Sam slips a hand into the pocket of her jumper and pulls out her phone, thumbing in the passcode so that she can type a message to Vicki:

_8:38 got the job!_

She brushes the hair out of her eyes and starts down the pavement toward the nearby Lidl’s, drawing up a mental grocery list that will hopefully keep her fed for the next few days. In her hand her phone vibrates:

 _8:42 they hired you on the spot??_  
_8:42 omg brilliant!_  
_8:43 :-D!_

Sam smiles and thumbs across the keyboard as she walks:

 _8:43 starting on Sat_  
_8:44 but can still make the pub quiz_  
_8:44 the seashell closes at 5 (??)_

Where Sam and Moira had lived, near the university, it would have been madness to close up any establishment offering free WiFi and caffeinated beverages before midnight - but maybe they do things differently here in Hastings.

Whatever the reason for the seashell’s early closure, she’s grateful because it means she can make hour’s drive back to Brighton that weekend. She has a standing date with Vicki, Imani, and Arwyn for quiz night and Sam needs regular infusions of their company quite desperately right now. Her friends had thought she was being a bit mad to leave the city altogether but she’d wanted some distance from everyday reminders of the life she and Moira had been building together. At least for the summer.

And it _has_ been a relief, in the past week, to be walking streets not chock-a-block with memories of their life together. But Sam misses her friends’ familiar faces. So the Saturday trip will be petrol money well spent.

Anyway, Imani and Arwyn have a few pieces of furniture and boxes she couldn’t fit in the boot of her car weekend before last. And at least one of those boxes has the new novels she’d picked up during the term but never had time to read.

Maybe the latest Seanan McGuire will help distract her from the rubbed-raw grief of returning each day to an empty flat. It’s currently a depressing haphazard collection of cardboard boxes still unpacked, furniture she and Moira had decided was “hers,” and a few things she’d had to purchase: mismatched dishes from the local charity shop, the new air mattress in the corner of the bedsit with new sheets and duvet folded over the top, a bedside lamp on an upended packing crate.

Sam sighs as she crosses the half-empty carpark at the front of the Lidl’s. At least, she thinks, now she’ll have a job to give shape to her newly-single life during the summer holidays, before courses begin again in September.

* * *

Sam wakes on Saturday morning to the raucous sound of gulls congregating at the rubbish bins outside her window. They start at first light, which as the calendar trends toward midsummer is closer to four o’clock than five.

The flat she’s secured is a below-ground bedsit, one room with a tiny kitchen (standing room for one) and an even tinier toilet. Light from outside is limited, but the rent is reasonable and the main room is big enough to accommodate her air mattress and drafting table. Her landlady lives upstairs with a dog and three cats, and -- in the past fortnight at least -- has made little noise apart from the comforting burble of evening television programmes and the _thump thump thump_ and _click click click_ of the wolfhound’s tail and toenails on the kitchen tile.

If only the bloody seagulls would quit their squabbling. Sam hauls herself out of bed with a sigh and pads to the toilet.

It’s been a restless night of dreams, during which she’d packed and unpacked endless boxes of childhood belongings, searching for something that kept changing in nature with each iteration of the dream. She and Moira were fighting about something, again, the dreamscape full of the tense silences that had grown up around them in the past year. She’d known, in the dream, that Moira disapproved of Sam spending so much time looking for … whatever it was. Sam had woken slightly panicked at not being able to find it -- of being dragged away before she could finish the task to her own satisfaction.

She stays under the shower until the water starts to run cold. It helps. A bit.

* * *

Two elderly gentlemen sit on the bench outside the seashell, waiting for the top of the hour, and nod in greeting as she approaches. One of them has a small dog at his feet who watches her with alert eyes, but doesn’t raise its head, just thumps its tail in greeting as she goes inside.

“Andrew says to go on inside,” the one on the left says, with a lift of his chin toward the door. So Sam ignores the “closed” sign and pushes open the door, causing the string of bells tied on the back of the door to jingle lightly against the glass.

“Hello?” The front room is empty, though the lights behind the counter are on and the kitchen door is ajar.

“Be right there!” calls a male voice from the back, over the burble of BBC Sussex's morning newscast piping in low over the cafe’s single speaker. Mr. Foyle had said, when he’d emailed her the employment forms, that his son Andrew would be there when she arrived for the opening shift. Something about an angler’s weekend up in -- somewhere in Wales. She can’t remember the river he’d named.

“Hullo!” a young man about her own age appears from the kitchen, wiping his hands with a towel, “I was just putting the scones in the oven. New recipe; took a bit longer than I’d anticipated, I’m afraid. You must be Samantha. Dad told me you’d be starting this morning.”

“Sam,” she corrects, automatically extending a hand in response to his proffered palm. His handshake is firm if slightly damp.

“Sam it is.” He has a sweet smile, she thinks, feeling her lips curl up in return. “Let me show you where to leave your things and then I can give you the grand tour -- Dad said you know your way around an espresso machine?”

“I worked at Costa for three years when we lived in Dundee,” Sam agrees. She follows him into the kitchen and find herself surveying the chaos of ingredients and baking implements. It had all been much neater when she walked through on her way to Mr. Foyle's tiny closet of a back office on Tuesday morning. Perhaps she'd simply missed the early morning bustle. That, or Mr. Foyle was a more efficient baker than his son.

“How long have you been working with your father?” She asks by way of conversation, as she shrugs off her windbreaker and hangs it on the hook that Andrew indicates with a wave of his hand.

“You can leave your bag -- I cleared a shelf for you here --” Andrew points to the space on the rough-hewn but sturdy looking storage shelves. “Oh, I’ve been working for him since he reopened the 'shell about two years ago. I was starting my MSc in Town Planning at Brighton around the same time he decided to take early retirement from the London Met, so.”

“Oh! You were at Brighton?”

“Am,” Andrew rubs the back of his neck ruefully. “I started out in Town Planning but didn’t stay there. I switched after year one to Urban Design.”

“My friend Imani’s in that programme -- Imani Lakhani?”

“Yeah -- I know Imani. We were in Sustainability together last fall.” There was that smile again.

“I’m seeing her tonight, actually,” Sam finds herself saying, “A group of us go to the pub quiz at the Bough every Saturday. Maybe you’d like to join us sometime? I mean,” she qualifies, “depending on your special subject. How are you on _Doctor Who_?” Why is she running on at the mouth like this? She really needs to shut up and focus on learning her way around the cash register before they open at eight.

“I’m ace at _Doctor Who_.” Andrew smirks, waving her back through the door to the front counter. “Also football -- but not rugby -- geography, art history, and punk rock from the eighties.”

“Brilliant. You’re hired,” Sam laughs. “Now. Show me how to run the till?”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [Summerday](http://www.metrolyrics.com/summerday-lyrics-dar-williams.html) by Dar Williams:
> 
> Then we scouted out the hollows  
> For solitude and silence  
> And we found the places we could meet  
> By the blue and glassy river  
> Under stars where the paper lanterns sway
> 
> In the streets of Summerday  
> Trust the night and trust the day  
> Sun and moon of Summerday  
> 


End file.
